The present invention is related to computer Chat Room systems or similar network-based systems providing services to network users, specifically, the automated process of paging a chatter or other network participant. In one embodiment the paging may result in a display of information related to one or more chatters within a Chat Room system. In a related embodiment, the paging may be an audio, visual or similar sensory cue which may or may not be associated with a visual display related to the other chatter.
Heretofore, a number of patents and publications have disclosed computer-based Chat Room systems, the relevant portions of which may be briefly summarized as follows:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,764,916 to Busey et al. for a “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REAL TIME COMMUNICATION OVER A COMPUTER NETWORK,” issued Jun. 9, 1998 is an exemplary representation of a Chat Room.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,839 to Moncreiff for a “COMPUTER NETWORK CHAT ROOM BASED ON CHANNEL BROADCASTS IN REAL TIME,” issued in Oct. 27, 1998 is directed to one or more Chat Rooms with the conversation being related to TV/Radio broadcasts of the chatters' preferences. The spirits of these inventions best capture the essence of the present-day Chat Room system; people conversing via a computer network designed to accommodate chatters with themed Chat Rooms for the purpose of initiating a common conversation. Traditionally, those chatting have had to type the conversation, however, Voice and Video communication technology is being introduced through Internet Portals using data compression methods similar to those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,927 to Gillon et al., issued Nov. 17, 1998 for a “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPRESSING A CONTINUOUS, INDISTINCT DATA STREAM.”
WO 98/16045 to Goldfinger et al., PCT Publication of 16 Apr. 1998 for a “COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM,” hereby incorporated by reference for its teachings, is directed to a communication network wherein users of the network can list “sought” users and the sought users are identified to the “seeking” user whenever they are “on-line.” The list of sought users must, however, have been predefined by the seeking user. The publication further describes in detail, aspects of such a system, wherein the user's are tracked or identified by an identifier or identification code, and the identifier is associated with the user's network address of the user's communication terminal.
Furthermore, various well-known Internet Portals (IPs) such as Yahoo.com, Excite.com, AOL.com have Chat Rooms systems with functionality beyond simple conversation (communication via typing on a keyboard or via voice chat). For example, these Internet portals employ Chat Rooms systems that provide additional functionality such as:                1. Search Engine—Many Chat Room systems provide search engines that enable a user to search for other chatters by inputting previously known chat name(s) and being presented with a list of where the desired chatter(s) are “chatting.” The user normally has previously encountered and conversed with the other chatter(s) and is simply looking for a chatters' chat name within the search engine archives to see if that person is currently logged into the Chat Room system. This information is valuable to a user, because it shows whether the other chatter(s) is available to chat in real-time. Usually, this functionality accompanies a display, providing a link that takes the user from the search engine interface screen directly to a Chat Room in the system. This is a completely proactive approach of finding friends.        2. Paging System—Several chat systems allow a chatter to keep a list of “friends” within the Chat Room system memory. When a chatter is logged into the Chat Room system, the Chat Room software will prompt or page the user upon detecting that one or more friends are logged in the chat system. A display of the chat name within the user's current Chat Room will appear notifying the user that the friend is logged into the system.        3. Profile—Many chat Room systems use a database to provide or display a list of characteristics of one chatter to another chatter. The characteristics, (the data) are provided to the Chat Room system by the chatters themselves. Commonly, chatters are given a set of questions to answer when first registering or logging into a Chat Room system. The answers to these questions are intended for display to other chatters. Criteria such as personal interests, hobbies, geographic location, age group, astrological information and sexual preferences are stored in a database and may subsequently be compiled into a list, which is revealed graphically, to other chatters in a visual display window should the other chatters choose to look at such a profile. The profile is commonly accessed by chatters using a computer mouse that enables the chatter to click a button and bring up another chatter's profile, where the button typically launches a new and separate display to the chatter revealing the profile.        4. Navigation within a Chat Room System—A chatter attends and moves to new Chat Rooms by clicking on a link that conveys to the computer Chat Room software (such as IRCD “Internet Relay Chat Daemon”) that the chatter wishes to move to the Room that Corresponds to the link. Within the Chat Room system, there are a multiple of rooms. Each room has a theme or topic for discussion. For example, there are rooms that have a politics theme. A chatter would click the appropriate link for the politics room in order to chat with others about politics.        
Most Chat Room systems have functionality that allows a maximum number of chatters to chat in one room. For instance, the functionality may only allow up to twenty-five chatters to chat in one room at a time. This is a necessary limitation, as too much activity in a room may hinder the ability to comprehend or create fluidity in a conversation. Hypothetically, the theme of this room could be Politics. With this model, the Chat Room system software will automatically create a new room of the same theme (Politics) once the room reaches its limitation of 25 chatters within a room. This new room will accommodate any new chatters who wish to be in the Politics Room.
Perhaps more important is the fact that when a new chatroom is created, a user who enters later may not know that other chatters he/she is accustomed to seeing are already participating in a filled chat room. The current invention eliminates such problems by showing (or paging) a user with characteristics of another person who may be in the same chat system, but in another room.
For example, if there were 300,000 chatters that Yahoo has at any one time in the same room, there wouldn't be a need for paging, because one could see all of the characteristics that are shown in the room (Assuming that one has a visual display devise that will show all 300,000 chatters' names at once.) The limitation of the number of users in any particular chat room emphasize the advantages of a profile display or paging system as described herein.
Ultimately, the Chat Room systems are very similar. There are multiple rooms; each room has a theme, or topic to induce a common conversation. Each chatter has a fictitious name and a means of finding other chatters via a search engine. And lastly, they have a paging system that will display information to a chatter if a friend(s) should log into the Chat System during the time that the chatter is logged into the system himself. These Chat Room systems' style of communication is effective for initiating or guiding a common conversation. They are designed to unite chatters with the intent of creating conversation subject matter through themed rooms, such as politics, for the sake of a common conversation. It will be appreciated that the paging of “friends,” as provided by one aspect of the present invention, may not be important for inducing a conversation based on a themed room. However, the purpose of identifying the common paging process is that the pager in any other chat room is completely pro-active. Thus, a “friends” paging system only pages those who already know each other and functions only when the user enables or programs it to do so.
The aforementioned Chat Room functionality does not provide a way of introducing, prompting or paging unknown or non-“friends” chatters based upon either personality traits (including, for example, astrological sign) and/or geographic location. This functionality, however, is crucial for establishing lasting interpersonal relationships that extend beyond a Chat Room experience. Unfortunately, well-known Chat Room systems are not designed to unite chatters for the sake of creating new and meaningful interpersonal relationship with another chatter.
It is common knowledge, in the psychiatric community, that interpersonal relationships are most successful when the people involved have much in common. Examples of commonality include chatters having similar interests, such as a leisure time activity, or commonality of the area in which they live. Living within the same area or city accommodates a more likely chance that chatters will establish more involved relationships outside of the Chat Room system. However, there is no paging (or introduction) system that will alert a user should another unknown chatter, have favorable commonalities such as geographic area and common psychological traits; thereby matching people from all over the world that are logged into the Chat Room system.
Knowledge of being able to share in these common leisure time activities, with other chatters, and having commonalities in psychological traits assures the chatters of a greater chance of successful relationship. On this point, existing Chat Room systems are believed to be inferior because they are unable to alert, page, or otherwise notify a user that there is another chatter(s) that meets favorable requirements for a successful interpersonal relationship.
The present invention is, therefore, directed to a new system designed to unite chatters for the purpose of creating new interpersonal relationships. The system is referred to as an Intelligence Driven Paging Process (IDPP). The IDPP is a process that augments and adds functionality to the profile functionality of known Chat Room systems and provides a means for promoting or prompting communications between two or more individuals. The current and common profiling system only displays profile information to a user upon request, usually by clicking a link. Because the profile display process of conventional Chat Room systems is only initiated when a user requests the information, it can be seen as reactive. Once the buttoned is clicked, the Chat Room system launches a separate and new display for review, where the display depicts the profile information of only one chatter.
Conversely, one aspect of the IDPP is different in that it is proactive and automated; instead of waiting for a chatter to click a button to review a profile, the IDPP uses predetermined preferences to ascertain personal compatibility between chatters based upon profile information for each chatter logged into the Chat Room system. If the IDPP system determines that these preferences are favorable for interpersonal compatibility, the system will automatically notify or page the chatters to be introduced.
It will be further appreciated that a user may control the desirable profile characteristics that will be used to select chatters for display to the user. It will also be appreciated that the simple process of displaying a table, or similar visual representation, of chatter profile information in association with an ongoing chat session may prove, in and of itself, a valuable feature.
This novel paging process is further intended to solve the problem of overcrowded Chat Room systems. For example, large Internet Portals such as America Online and Yahoo may have hundreds or thousands of chatters within the system at any given time. It is impossible for a user to view every profile of the other chatters (via a link to a profile display) who were logged into the Chat Room system at that given time; people log in and out of the system randomly. Another aspect of the IDPP solves this problem due to its proactive, intelligence-driven paging process. More specifically, the IDPP may be employed to notify a user of other chatters' characteristics without having to click on links to find other chatters' profile information. The IDPP uses the profile information and preset compatibility preferences of all chatters that are logged into the Chat Room system in order to determine interpersonal compatibility. If the IDPP's system logic determines that two or more people are compatible (using Compatibility Criteria), the profile information may be automatically displayed. This saves chatters time by not requiring them to click on the profiles of every chatter within the system to determine the compatibility of said chatters.
The Compatibility Criteria used by the IDPP can be identified and determined by well-established psychological methods. The methods used may also be based upon identified commonality between chatters' personality traits and geographic location. Commonality includes that of psychological personality traits; such as the way chatters interact emotionally or the way chatters cognitively function. Any given information will suffice, however.
As will be appreciated by those knowledgeable in the area of psychiatry, there are myriad of methods to identify cognitive and emotional personality traits in order to create data for a Chat Room system to determine which chatters should be introduced to other chatters. These traits or data can be identified and saved into the Chat Room system memory. The data that is saved into the system memory can be used to compare such data to the archived data of all other chatters within the Chat Room system.
For example, the IDPP may use the results of standard industry personality typing tests such as the Myers, Briggs Personality Assessment Test or the Keirsey, Bates Temperament Sorter, another personality typing system, as used in Please Understand Me, Character and Temperament Types, published in 1978 by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates. Additionally, Astrology, a controversial science spanning thousands of years, can be used to identify and describe such traits. These are only two examples of ways to determine and identify data of a chatter needed to compare with data of other chatters. Data required for comparison may be as simple as marital status (e.g., single and divorced chatters being identified as compatible), need for employment, religious preferences, or age.
As used herein, the processes are examples of ways that are intended to identify facets of a chatter's personality. It does not matter which system is used for identifying these facets, as the IDPP system will compare any and all data contained in chatters' profiles in order to page and Introduce two or more of said chatters.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a method for the automated display of human participant-specific data to a human participant of a network chat room, comprising the steps of: (a) collecting human participant customized data for a plurality of chat room participants; (b) storing, in memory, the human participant customized data collected, (c) sorting said human participant customized data from a plurality of chat room participants by participant-specified preferences; and (d) automatically displaying sorted human participant customized data to at least one participant in association with a network chat room.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for determining the compatibility of at least two participants in a chat room, and for the automated paging of compatible participants, comprising the steps of: (a) collecting human participant customized data for a plurality of chat room participants; (b) storing, in memory, the human participant customized data collected; (c) sorting said human participant customized data from a plurality of chat room participants by participant-specified preferences; (d) automatically computing the compatibility of at least two human participants, and (e) paging the participants to indicate their compatibility.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for automatically prompting compatible users in a network based upon a compatibility criteria, comprising the steps of: (a) collecting human participant customized data for a plurality of network users; (b) storing, in memory, the human participant customized data collected; (c) sorting said human participant customized data from a plurality of network users by participant-specified preferences; (d) automatically computing the compatibility of at least two network users using the predetermined criteria; and (e) paging the network users to indicate their compatibility.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for the automated display of human participant-specific data to a human participant of a network chat room, comprising: a computer network for collecting human participant customized data for a plurality of chat room participants; a database for storing, in a memory, the human participant customized data collected via the network; and a processor, associated with said network and with access to said database, for sorting said human participant customized data from a plurality of chat room participants using compatibility criteria, and automatically displaying at least a portion of the sorted human participant customized data to at least one participant in association with the network chat room.
The techniques described herein are advantageous because they significantly improve the functionality of traditional chat rooms, with little additional overhead. Moreover, the techniques provide to chat rooms, the opportunity to easily identify compatible chatters, avoiding the tedious process of manually reviewing chatters' profiles. As a result of the invention, it is believed that chat room and network participant satisfaction will increase as will the usage of chat rooms and networks that employ aspects of the present invention.
The present invention will be described in connection with a preferred embodiment, however, it will be understood that there is no intent to limit the invention to the embodiment described. On the contrary, the intent is to cover all alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.